Floreana Island
Today we visited Floreana Island, also known as the “mystery island”. This island has a lot of human history; it is one of the first islands that was colonized by humans. After that in the seventeen and eighteen hundreds these islands were visited by whalers and Buccaneers that came here for about a hundred years. They implemented a cooperative post office system that is working to this day.
Late in the morning we visited another island called Champion Island, where we did different water activities, like snorkeling and glass bottom boating. The water was very clear; some marine turtles appeared along our path, and at the end of the snorkel site some baby sea lions came to play and interacted with us, and it was a lot of fun. After the snorkel we took the Zodiacs and did a cruise around this island; we found one beautiful bird called the red billed tropic bird. It is one of the most difficult birds to get a picture of, because if they are not in the air they are inside their nests, and today it landed in a clear spot; you have to be very fast with the camera to get a picture of them.
In the afternoon we had the opportunity to kayak and also spend some time at the beach; right beside it we had a lagoon formed of sea water where we saw a nice colony of Galápagos flamingos. Today we had the great opportunity to see one of them nesting, in this lagoon it happens only every four or five years, after taking some pictures of this beautiful lagoon, we walked to a nice white beach that is the nesting site of the Pacific green sea turtle. This is the time of year when the baby turtles are hatching. Once we arrived there we saw one frigate bird waiting, trying to catch one of them; suddenly it got it. It was sad to see it, but that is the low of life, it happens every day and the equilibrium of nature is wise. The population of turtles in this site is healthy and so are the frigates that are their natural predators.
We all came back on board telling all different stories of this mystery island.
Today we visited Floreana Island, also known as the “mystery island”. This island has a lot of human history; it is one of the first islands that was colonized by humans. After that in the seventeen and eighteen hundreds these islands were visited by whalers and Buccaneers that came here for about a hundred years. They implemented a cooperative post office system that is working to this day.
Late in the morning we visited another island called Champion Island, where we did different water activities, like snorkeling and glass bottom boating. The water was very clear; some marine turtles appeared along our path, and at the end of the snorkel site some baby sea lions came to play and interacted with us, and it was a lot of fun. After the snorkel we took the Zodiacs and did a cruise around this island; we found one beautiful bird called the red billed tropic bird. It is one of the most difficult birds to get a picture of, because if they are not in the air they are inside their nests, and today it landed in a clear spot; you have to be very fast with the camera to get a picture of them.
In the afternoon we had the opportunity to kayak and also spend some time at the beach; right beside it we had a lagoon formed of sea water where we saw a nice colony of Galápagos flamingos. Today we had the great opportunity to see one of them nesting, in this lagoon it happens only every four or five years, after taking some pictures of this beautiful lagoon, we walked to a nice white beach that is the nesting site of the Pacific green sea turtle. This is the time of year when the baby turtles are hatching. Once we arrived there we saw one frigate bird waiting, trying to catch one of them; suddenly it got it. It was sad to see it, but that is the low of life, it happens every day and the equilibrium of nature is wise. The population of turtles in this site is healthy and so are the frigates that are their natural predators.
We all came back on board telling all different stories of this mystery island.
